State's Steady Drop In Manufacturing Jobs Appears To Have Slowed

In Manufacturing, State's Job Losses Seem To Be Slowing

November 22, 1992|By W. JOSEPH CAMPBELL; Courant Staff Writer

Concealed by the succession of gloomy reports about Connecticut's recession-ravaged economy are signs of a marked slowing in the loss of jobs in manufacturing, the bedrock upon which the state built affluence.

That's not to say that manufacturing -- a sector that employs about 20 percent of the state's work force and includes the production of everything from jet engines and medical instruments to hand tools and newspapers -- is poised for robust recovery in Connecticut. Indeed, thousands of jobs are to be eliminated by mid-decade in defense-related industries, which comprise the single largest segment of manufacturing in Connecticut.

But the steep, unbroken losses in manufacturing employment that began in 1985 appear finally to be slackening. Evidence comes from several sources, both statistical and anecdotal, and include:

A little-noted portion of the latest report by the New England Economic Project, a regional forecasting organization, showing that the job loss in manufacturing this year will be 3.6 percent. The loss was 5.5 percent last year, and 5.1 percent in 1990.

Such figures indicate that the bulk of the shakeout in manufacturing has already taken place. Manufacturing employment in Connecticut stands at 310,000.

"I think the major shock wave might be over," said Aloyzas Petrikas, president of Vitta Corp. in Bethel and co-chairman of the former Legislative Task Force on Manufacturing. "You are looking at a slowdown in the cutbacks. But I do not see evidence of [manufacturing employment] turning around."

The recession is claiming proportionately more jobs in service industries than in manufacturing, the state Labor Department's most recent figures show. Manufacturing accounted for 23 percent of the 49,300 jobs lost in Connecticut in the 12 months through September; losses in retailing represented 31 percent of the total.

Since the recession began nearly four years ago, manufacturing accounted for 30 percent of the 192,800 jobs lost; retailing accounted for 26.8 percent.

"The recession's bite is shifting," said Ronald F. Van Winkle, a West Hartford economist. He said that manufacturers in Connecticut, whose markets and customers typically extend well beyond the state, usually are more sensitive to swings in the national economy than retailers. The slowly improving national economy, Van Winkle said, could help explain the slackening job losses in Connecticut's manufacturing sector.

What's more, he said, "there's a bottom to the bucket, somewhere," in manufacturing employment. For most of the years after World War II -- until 1985, in fact -- the floor for manufacturing employment was about 400,000 jobs. According to the New England Economic Project, the floor will be slightly less than 300,000 jobs by the mid and late-1990s.

The years until then will bring further losses in manufacturing employment, particularly in industries dependent upon military spending. Those industries are classified by the federal government as the "transportation equipment" sector. Transportation equipment is the largest single component of Connecticut's manufacturing profile.

In 1985, the state's transportation equipment sector had 84,000 jobs. It now has 70,000 jobs. The economic project predicts it will have less than 60,000 jobs by 1996. Indeed, a succession of layoff announcements has swept the once-powerful Connecticut defense industry.

Pratt & Whitney, the jet-engine maker and largest unit of United Technologies Corp., has shed more than 2,400 hourly and salaried jobs since Jan. 1 and plans to cut 4,800 more by next summer.

Stratford-based Textron Lycoming, the maker of turbine engines for tanks, plans to cut 1,200 jobs by next autumn.

The work force at Electric Boat in Groton was cut by 4,000 in the past two years, and 1,500 more jobs are to be eliminated next year.

Such steep losses in the largest segment of the manufacturing sector will be difficult to offset in other, smaller segments, economists say. Even so, there are scattered reports of manufacturers planning to add to their work forces in Connecticut. The reports don't necessarily add up to a trend, but they do suggest a further braking on the loss of manufacturing jobs.

Hartford-based Loctite Corp. broke ground this month for a $32 million North American administrative and research center in Rocky Hill, a complex that by 1994 will be the workplace for 450 people -- 80 of them newcomers to Connecticut, said the company's president, David Freeman. The project will be the largest ever for Loctite, which does most of its business overseas.

On a smaller scale, Murray A. Gerber, president of Prototype and Plastic Mold Co. Inc. in Middletown, said he hopes to restore his company's work force to 100 in two or three years. It now is about 65.

Gerber said his plastics company has found an expanding niche in the aerospace industry, providing parts that used to be made from metal. "It's the fastest-growing part of our business," he said.